A Michigan man used a his quick-witted detective skills and a lucky livestream to solve the disappearance of his 17-year-old son, People reported.
Troy Coleman vanished from his Flint, MI neighborhood on the morning of May 17 after telling his grandfather that he was heading to the store. At the time, the teen was living at his grandfather’s house located directly next to the home of Troy’s father, Weston Coleman.
Both Weston and his father went about their day, only realizing when they returned home from a respective fishing trip and dentist appointment that Troy never returned from his outing. “I immediately knew that something was wrong because I couldn't find him in the neighborhood,” Weston recalled. “So I called the police, the police came over here, made a report, and he didn't come home that night.”
Weston was able to piece together his son’s movements thanks to surveillance footage, which showed Troy taking a local bus to a mall on the morning of the 17th. He spent the day there, and the next morning boarded a Greyhound bus headed for Atlanta. Due to a clerical error, Troy’s name wasn’t entered into Greyhound’s system when he purchased his ticket, so his family was unable to track his whereabouts from there.
That’s when Weston began his own investigation. He examined his son’s internet history, which contained searches for Key West, FL. Along with a friend, Weston immediately drove to Key West. He spent a week in the city working with local police, but turned up no leads. Dejected, they returned home to Michigan.
With the help of Troy’s brothers, Trenton and Thomas, Weston spent hours searching the streets of Flint and other cities around Detroit. “I drove around for so many days and so many nights looking for him," Weston said. "I looked for him so hard, I couldn't understand how he could have lived through it with nothing.”
At one point, Troy’s family considered that he might be dead. “I was up and down like a rollercoaster,” Weston admitted. “Sometimes you think he's alive, sometimes you think he's dead. It was horrible.”
And then, 50 days after the teen disappeared, an internet sleuth alerted Trenton to a Twitch livestream, recorded in Miami, in which a person resembling Troy walked through the clip.
Upon seeing the clip, Weston knew the person was his son. He immediately phoned the Miami Beach Police Department. "And then I had Trenton send the video and pictures of Troy to them and then they went on the hunt for him,” the father explained. “And then I woke up that afternoon to Flint Township [police] pounding on my door saying that they found him.”
Troy later told Weston that he had been robbed in Atlanta and then found his way to Miami, where he was twice arrested for sleeping in parks. “I said, ‘Troy, why'd you go down to Florida?’” Weston recalled. “He said, ‘Dad, I was looking for famous people.’”
The young man’s physical and mental health was greatly impacted by his time living on the streets in Florida. He suffered so much direct sun exposure that his ears, nose, and shoulders are missing patches of skin, and his brown hair has turned white.
Troy is currently under evaluation at a local hospital. Though he has a long road to recovery, his family is just relieved for his safe return.
“I didn't quit looking for him the whole time,” Weston said. “I know what he went through, and he went through a lot. I mean, a lot of nights, a lot of days.”
But the experience was a “mental and physical beat down” for Weston and the rest of his family. “Now I'm off my little adrenaline rush from looking for him, and I can't wake up,” Weston said. “Right now, we're just both recovering from our mission here…I'm just glad he's alive at this point and now can't believe we found him.”
